


What Happens in Lonalulu, Binds Our Hearts

by NedrynWrites



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drinking, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), M/M, Mute Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI), guest starring the swindlers outfit, underage drinking if you're in the states i guess, what should have happened in lonalulu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NedrynWrites/pseuds/NedrynWrites
Summary: “Let’s just kick back and enjoy the party!”  Erik looked up expectantly, a grin on his face and a mug in his hand.  He shifted where he sat on the cape he shed.  Only the thin straps of his breastplate covered his back.Kai could wait.
Relationships: Camus | Erik/Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 89





	What Happens in Lonalulu, Binds Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omgitsaddyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omgitsaddyc/gifts).



> Eleven is mute and uses sign language, depicted within apostrophes.  
> Rated Teen for suggestive content and one (1) use of the doodoo word.  
> Eleven and Erik are both depicted as adults. As per my usual habit, I've aged them both up by two years, which would put Eleven (vs his canon age which was given well after I played the game the first time) at 18. 
> 
> For Addy, who kept me sane this last week. You're an angel and my best friend and I love you. 
> 
> Thanks to Chel for beta-ing and dealing with my general panic, I would apologize again for that but I feel like I would get deservingly smacked.

It was urgent that they find Kai as soon as possible. Goddess only knew where he went, and Eleven didn’t feel like tracking him down with his rumbling belly when food and drink were flowing like water. 

He knew he needed to take care of it as soon as he was able, but… 

“Let’s just kick back and enjoy the party!” Erik looked up expectantly, a grin on his face and a mug in his hand. He shifted where he sat on the cape he shed. Only the thin straps of his breastplate covered his back. 

Kai could wait. 

He didn’t mean to ogle his friend, truly he didn’t. And he managed it - but only when he was sober. 

Erik threw back his head and laughed at a joke Eleven already forgot he’d told. His eyes trailed Erik’s exposed stomach, his too-thin waist lined with lean muscle from constantly fighting for his life. 

He wasn’t in danger now. Peace was a good look on him. Eleven wondered if Erik would come home with him when all of this was over, wherever home might be. He didn’t realize his hands were moving until Erik’s eyes went wide. 

“You’ve had too mush t’drink,” Erik slurred.

‘So have you.’ 

“Hey,” Erik said, poking Eleven in the chest. The touch felt nice. Eleven wanted more of it. “I’m not the one proposin’ like it’s nothing.” 

_ Proposing?! _

He supposed it seemed like that. It wasn’t as though he minded the idea of it. Not at all. But it was certainly skipping…  _ several _ steps. 

He’d marry Erik right in that moment should he only agree to it. 

He repeated this to Erik. He didn’t know why he did. He was sober enough that he  _ should _ have had enough of a filter, and he would remember that comment specifically come morning. He’d remember the internal flinch that didn’t quite save him. 

“Let’s do it,” Erik said. 

Coming together to seal it with a kiss, the sweet taste of Erik’s lips and the smell of alcohol on his breath, that was the last thing he remembered from that night. 

* * *

Eleven groaned. The lights coming in through the thin blinds were too bright, the sheets scratchy. There was a heavy weight across his chest, and he was too warm despite the chill of the Lonalulu night. A bright blue filling his vision assaulted his delicate senses. 

And then a voice. 

“What,” Erik said, more a grunt than a word. He lifted up, one of his hands pressing hard enough into Eleven’s stomach that he coughed. The weight and warmth fled him. 

It was only when Erik gasped and scrambled away that Eleven realized it might be unusual, the state they were in. 

The state of  _ undress _ they were in. 

Eleven still had his trousers on, partially untied though they were. His undershirt was in a heap across the bed side table, his duster nowhere to be found. Erik, on the other hand, was clad in just his boxers, and Eleven could see the glint of his breastplate on the floor over the side of the bed. 

Erik’s hands shot down to cover himself, though Eleven had seen him in less. Bathing on the road required a lack of modesty. The movement drew Eleven’s eyes to Erik’s hands, and he had to do a double take. 

A double take at the ring on his finger. 

It was a simple thing - wooden with a flower pattern painted and glossed. Eleven raised his hand to point it out, the other tightening the laces of his pants to restore his decency, and was distracted again, this time by the band on his own finger. 

He was aware enough to figure out what had happened. 

He wasn’t sure how official they’d made it - how official they  _ could _ have made it, due to their unfamiliarity with marriage customs in Lonalulu and the fact that they’d both been blackout drunk besides. What he  _ could  _ gather was that they’d made a vow to each other, one that Eleven intended to keep, should Erik only want it just as much. 

Based on the look of horror that crossed Erik’s face as he came to the same conclusion, he didn’t. 

Eleven tried to swallow the hurt. There was little for adults to do in Cobblestone nights besides drinking. He’d witnessed no less than five drunken marriages with Dunstan alone, all being annulled or, in cases he didn’t want to think carefully on, divorced with no hard feelings. 

Still, he’d never seen a case where one was desperately in love with the other. 

From the moment Erik had removed his hood, Eleven had known he was attractive. From the moment he was taken in Gondolia, he knew he’d do anything to keep him safe. From the moment Erik’s lips twitched as Vince tossed his arm around Eleven and called him “partner,” Eleven knew he was head over heels, and hoped that reaction meant Erik felt the same. 

The idea of waking up to forgotten vows was the best and worst thing that could have happened to him. Being married to Erik was everything he’d dreamed of for the last several months, but he knew it was temporary. 

Especially with the way Erik scrambled away. 

“What… what happened?” Erik stammered. Like he didn’t know. Like he didn’t want to believe it. 

‘Blue,’ Eleven said, a name sign he’d established early on when he needed a quick means of distinguishing his friends mid-combat. ‘There’s no way the church here let us get married blackout drunk.’ 

“Married,” Erik mumbled. 

‘I’m sorry.’ Eleven tried to ignore the way it tore his heart. ‘I know this isn’t ideal, certainly not with me. And the way we’re dressed…’ 

“We didn’t-” Erik cut off, then started again, quieter. “Did we?” 

‘I don’t know.’ Eleven’s eyes burned. ‘I don’t know.’ 

“I-” Like water out of a tipped bowl, the look of panic dropped away from Erik’s expression. “Hey, you okay?” He immediately cringed. “That was- that was a stupid question. I mean, you look… sad.” 

‘It’s nothing,’ Eleven tried, knowing full well Erik knew him too well for that to work. The look Erik gave him confirmed this, a lowering of the eyebrows in his  _ “why are you lying to me” _ way. ‘I-’ He shook his head. He  _ couldn’t. _ Couldn’t lose him. But something told him he already had. 

“El,” Erik said, his voice low and vulnerable, “please.” 

So Eleven told him everything. 

Starting at the present, his misplaced hurt and wishes that this was real, working his way back through every time he’d felt something different than platonic. He couldn’t bring himself to stop, even as Erik’s jaw dropped, as his face grew red, as the growing look in his eyes Eleven recognized as horror became too much for him to meet. He couldn’t keep lying to Erik, and once the leak was sprung, an ocean came pouring out of it. 

His hands shook when they finally stopped moving, the lack of conversation in the room overwhelming. Erik’s silence overwhelming. 

Eleven’s eyes burned more, tears threatening to spill. He’d known he’d lost Erik from the minute he woke up, but now he’d made it certain. He was one of the best friends Eleven ever had. The only one he knew for sure was still alive who was that close. The feeling of loss was colder than the chains he’d been dragged into the Heliodor dungeons by. 

“El,” Erik finally said. Then silence, as Eleven flinched away as if preparing to be struck. 

After stillness, the weight of that one word filling the air, Erik started to move closer. Eleven didn’t expect Erik to  _ actually _ hit him - he wasn’t a monster - but he couldn’t figure out why he would possibly be doing anything but leaving his side as fast as he could. 

“I’ve never-” Erik’s voice was hoarse- “been good at talking, but,” his hands framed Eleven’s face, and by some miracle, Eleven didn’t shrink in on himself, “can… can I-” 

He moved closer still, so close Eleven almost went cross-eyed trying to focus on his face. He could only just see the bob of Erik’s throat as he swallowed, the flush on his cheeks, the trembling of his hands. 

But somehow, Eleven didn’t figure out what he was trying to say until soft lips met his. 

It was only a quick brush, could barely be registered as a kiss. Eleven’s chest was a collapsing star; he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Erik smiled, wobbly and unsure, but there all the same. 

And with only one thought -  _ what am I doing? _ \- Eleven found himself diving back in. 

Erik took a sharp inhale through his nose, but didn’t pull away. He seemed to know what he was doing, good, because Eleven  _ very much did not. _ He supposed he was doing okay, though, when Erik released a shaking sigh and moved closer, running his hands along Eleven’s shoulders up to tangle in his hair. 

Eleven had no idea what to do with his hands. In Erik’s state of undress, he wondered if it would be inappropriate to touch him at all, though he wanted to hold him so badly. 

Then Erik gently pulled Eleven’s lower lip with his teeth. By the time his brain returned from its temporary time as a puddle, he had both hands on his waist. Erik was soft, and warm, and the feeling of bare skin under his hands did weird things to Eleven's remaining brainpower. 

Erik brushed his tongue to Eleven’s lower lip, testing the waters, and then they were falling. In his eagerness, Erik had pushed Eleven back, and down, and he fell to the pillows. They fell together, still connected by the mouths. Their teeth clacked painfully when they landed. 

“Shit,” Erik hissed, pulling back. Eleven’s hand came up to his mouth as if to rub the pain away. Despite his stinging lips, he must have looked ridiculously lovestruck, considering how quickly Erik’s expression turned. 

“Sorry,” he said with a shy smile, still so close, “guess I got a bit carried away.” 

_ A bit? _ The thought fought for his last brain cell, the other combatant being  _ kiss me again. _

And it looked like he was about to do just that before the door slammed open. 

“There you a- are?” They both froze, sharing a wide-eyed stare. “Just  _ what _ are you two doing?” 

Erik glanced down at the suggestive sight they were surely making, and then back up, Eleven only just seeing the spark of mischief in his eyes before he whirled on Veronica. 

“What does it  _ look  _ like? Get out!” 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you liked it, please drop a kudos, or a comment if you're feeling brave! Even a smiley face to let me know you enjoyed it would make me very happy!  
> Please note that I have a beta, and do not wish to receive concrit from commenters at this time. Thank you for understanding ♡
> 
> [Tumblr](https://nedrynwrites.tumblr.com/)  
> Feel free to comment/message me if you have questions! I love talking to you!


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